Adam de la Halle was a thirteenth
century trouvère from Northern France, a composer and a poet,
who travelled widely and moved in courtly circles. He wrote
both words and music for his drama Le Jeu de Robin,
and, as such, it is one of the earliest extant examples of
a secular play set to music.

Not much survives of the original
play - mostly spoken texts with some unaccompanied melodies.
This reconstruction is an attempt to make the recording as
authentic as possible through the combination of the existing
texts of the play along with plainchant, motets and rondeaux
of the period. These components might have formed part of
such an entertainment and, in any case, would have been common
sounds to de la Halle’s audience. Cleverly, this includes
the text spoken in the original French dialect, which is
to be heard on the left speaker, while the songs (in French)
and English dialogue emerges from your right. This is an
interesting method which works extremely well; much fun to
be had playing with balances! The whole result is one of
spontaneity and improvised freedom, which is very appropriate.

The play, about an amorous knight
who makes a play for a shepherdess despite her affection
for her lover, is very much based in pastoral tradition.
It is full of references to bucolic life, including such
aspects as peasant party games and food-related jokes. Consequently,
the spirit of the whole piece is rather “silly”, but it is
none the worse for this, and, as a reconstruction of a mediaeval “musical
comedy”, is both entertaining and fascinating from a historical
point of view.

The performances cannot be criticised – full
of brilliant and often amusing characterisations, with top-quality
and expressive singing from all, as I have come to expect
from Tonus Peregrinus.
Em Marshall

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